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| Newly painted figures get ready for action earlier this week |
A couple of weeks ago, in one of my many hobby distractions, I started in on some excellent
28mm near-future sci-fi models courtesy of
Frank Hammond. I had finished the models this week (there are 24 of them in my initial batch) and Dallas was kind enough to get them involved as part of our regular game this week. For fun we used the new
Bolt Action rules - intended for WW2, they adapted quite easily to the science fiction setting.
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| These old 40k Storm Troopers bolstered the Frank Hammond troops |
For a scenario we decided to pull the good, hard working folks of Binary Petroleum - last seen in our 6mm FUBAR games - into the 28mm setting. A group of character models would represent a well-meaning Binary Petroleum survey team, set upon by some FuturKom Motor Fuzileers.
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| The FuturKom Legions - an awesome collection from Dallas |
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| FuturKom motor pool - note the dreaded T-620 in the foreground... |
My Frank Hammond troops were blended in with some vehicles and additional bits from my 40k collection - one of the main reasons I had applied my blue paint scheme to the infantry was so I could merge them into my large collection of Imperial Guard stuff. In all we had three infantry squads with APCs, one marksman, one MBT and an officer. One of the squads, represented by Imperial Guard storm troopers, was an elite veteran team. The Kommulists had a near-identical lineup - three squads in APCs, a T-340 and the dreaded T-620! The Kommulists had extra armoured power in contrast to our better infantry. Dallas took command of FuturKom and I rolled with the PDF forces.
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| These 40k characters represented a Binary Petroleum survey team...I find they match up well with that role |
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| A BP representative gives an on-site interview... |
The members of the BP survey team were spread across the table as objectives, and the goal was to try and capture as many as possible. Once the game ended, Dallas and I would roll a D6 for each survey team member recovered - whoever rolled highest would recover the valuable survey data as to which areas of the verdant colony world were ripe for transformation into tar-fuel pits. Oh - and some of the survey team members would maybe be saved too, which was BP's "official" goal...
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| This BTR-700 was no match for the main gun on my tank - too bad this was the only thing my tank managed to hit... |
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| The T-620 commands all before it - the power of Kommulist industry... |
The game moved at a good clip - Dallas and I each moved to grab some team members, but Dallas was more efficient with his movement. I had some early success punching holes in his APCs, but he was able to knock out my tank before I could get to his (I blew key rolls to help that along...) and this would put the balance of firepower toward FuturKom for the rest of the game.
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| PDF fire-teams open up on the Kommulists |
I didn't help my cause by getting my APCs all bottled up near the middle of the table. Sure, my infantry had cover, but they couldn't get anywhere useful.
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| This APC was knocked out and made for a bit of a traffic jam for me - and a good back drop for a live hit from the reporter |
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| Motor Fuzileers under fire - note the "rescued" BP survey team member being spirited away in the background |
Still, we got our licks in. Two of the FuturKom squads were lit up, and we took out all of their APCs. On the other hand I lost an entire squad, two APCs and a tank. By the end of the game Dallas had recovered three survey team members, and I had "saved" only one. It was a win for FuturKom. I'm sure the Galactic Central Policy Committee has already reviewed the information as to which areas would make the best spots as they plot "Grozny 4"...
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| Burning BTR in the centre of the table - see how Dallas squeezed that APC along the table edge? Darn it! |
Bolt Action showed once again to be the current "it" rules. They adapted very well to our setting and allowed for a quick and efficient game. They are miles beyond the current edition of 40k in terms of quality, enjoyment and representation - I recommend you give them a try!
Fun game and great write-up, Greg! Seems like BA is becoming a "go-to" ruleset for many periods... with good reason. It's quite elegant and lends itself well to multi-era games.
ReplyDeleteGreat write-up, and good to see those new figures in action. I had considered using Bolt Action for sci-fi. Did you just use straight substitutions (WWII US Rifleman becomes FutureKom rifleman) or did you make some changes to make it more 'sci-fi'. I guess all of your troops were lightly armoured. I just wonder how you'd handle heavier body armour.
ReplyDelete@joe5mc - I just threw together some quick stats for the infantry, and for the armour I looked for equivalents. The T-620, for example, was armoured like a Tiger I. The gun on the Leman Russ Vanquisher was on par with a Panther etc.
ReplyDeleteThe infantry are all lightly armoured, so we did not account for that, but it would be very easy to add "pips" to reflect armour values that would be over and above the current rolls to inflict a kill on green/regular/veteran troops.
I think the Bolt Action game engine is very elegant and straightforward - I recommendt it highly!
So for power armor, you'd use +2 to the "to kill" roll, something in between would be +1.
ReplyDeleteBut would that put veteran power armour people at 7+ to hit? I guess that's fair (if the 6+ / roll 4+ rule is in play).
If the baseline is light armor, unarmoured troops could be at a penalty.